About Me!

I guess I should start at the beginning but that sounds too simple so lets delve right in.

PyroBrit ? I cannot really lay claim to thinking this name up from scratch. It came about after stumbling accross a blog run by Tom called LinuxBrit. Like Tom, I too have a passion for Linux but my primary passion after hacking computers is Pyrotechnics in which I run my own Fireworks Company (Cotswold Fireworks Ltd). So along with being British (and proud of it!), PyroBrit was born in 2000. Wow, the same year I got married!

Fireworks before Marriage ? Certainly Fireworks were in my life well before I even dreamed of getting married. I can remember my first fireworks at 4 years old with my parents in the back garden. Let’s just say I was hooked and after countless years of watching these companies produce displays where I lived, it was my turn in the early ninties. In 1998 I met my future wife (Sharon) and at the time I was booked to spend a week at the Pyrotechnics Guild International (PGI) in the USA. It didn’t happen. They say “love conquers all” and having cancelled the plane flight, I used the money saved to buy the engagement ring. One day I will get to the PGI.

Children ? Lucy and Hannah. Two gorgeous girls who along with Sharon, fill my life with all the emotions any sane person should ever need.

Computers ? It’s strange as my father was a computer programmer in Cobol yet I had no inkling that I would be drawn to computers as a career. At the age of 11 I really thought my career would be in the military until one rainy day during lunch I walked into a maths classroom and set my eyes on an Apple II being unboxed. The schools first computer. Mr Bell whom I always believed to be a fearsome teacher promptly asked me to take a seat and try it out. And so became the remainder of my school life spending near every minute of my lunch breaks in front of a green screen monitor.

Career ? It’s been a long one so lets make this entry short and tie up this posting. I’m sure there will be plenty more blog posts about the problems I experience on a day to day basis in my job as a Production Systems Specialist. A glamorous job title but essentially I support and maintain the server hardware and OS systems. Primarily VMWare, NetApp, MS Exchange and Citrix, both Xen-App and Xen-Desktop which I am grudgingly beginning to enjoy. IMHO, Citrix is a whole world of pain and requires a very large hammer to polish it.

That will do for the moment. I haven’t even ,mentioned Quadcopters, hacking, Arduino, Mame and more Fireworks…